Crazy
by marshtomp madness
Summary: Draco's dear aunty Bellatrix teaches him Occlumency. And we all know how she "likes to play with her food before she eats it".


Bellatrix leaned over, tracing Draco's left ear with her wand lightly.

He could feel goosebumps rising on the back of his neck, and evidently she could see them, because she laughed. It was mad, cackling laughter. He wondered if her laugh had ever been anything different- he couldn't picture it. Had Azkaban completely unhinged her, or had she always been this way? It must have been Azkaban. She and Mum were as different as night and day, but they had been raised together. He'd seen pictures. She hadn't seemed so... sadistic in them, and yet, pictures were just pictures.

He tried to lean away, but it was no good. She had tied him to a chair- she was mad, bloody _insane_, his father would never stand for this if he were here (but he wasn't, he was in Azkaban) and Draco could only imagine what his mother would do if she found out-

"Legilimens," she hissed, and Draco had very little time to prepare, shutting his eyes as though if she couldn't see into them, she couldn't see into his head.

This, as he had soon found out during their first lesson, was not true.

"Oh, _no_, ickle Draco," she whispered sing-song in his ear, leaning too close, literally reading his thoughts. "You cannot prepare. I will not coddle you."

She and Mum had the same musical voice, the same clear, high-class way of speaking and pronouncing their words. But while his mum's voice brought to mind champagne glasses, silky fabrics, and, previously in his life, lullabies sung nightly, Aunt Bella's made him think of delicate cobwebs that held insect corpses, dust settling on dead roses. Sunlight and moonlight, sanity and madness.

"And _why _won't I coddle you? Dearest darling baby Draco, Severus Snape will _not _give you time to prepare. You must be ready _always_, keeping your emotions below the surface at all times. And you will _not _share this with your mummy. The Dark Lord instructed that Occlumency is to be taught to you _in private_. The fewer people know, the better. Mummy believes you are on a date with little Miss Parkinson, and that is the way it shall remain... And delicate cobwebs, really? I've never been so flattered."

Images flashed through as she spoke, but they were faded and fuzzy around the ages, and looked like he was seeing them through ripples on a pond's surface.

_It hurts..._

_Mornings eating breakfast with Crabbe and Goyle, Charms class folding paper into notes that bit Potter, Pansy and her incessant attempts to woo him-_

Suddenly, they stopped.

"You're quite the natural," Bellatrix said. "It's getting harder to look into your head now. It's unclear what I'm seeing most of the time. I knew you would be good at this."

She smiled at him, dark eyes depthless in her pale face, teeth yellowing, and chills ran down his spine.

"It's a Black family thing, you know," she said. "We're good at shutting things out. It is necessary for ones such as us, and how we are raised. Your father, too- such impressive Imperios he's done, did you think someone incapable of mastering their own mind could ever hope to control someone else's? Yes, Draco, you could be just as impressive as Daddy."

Draco's head hurt, and he couldn't raise his hands- they were, after all, tied to the back of the chair- to push his hair off of his sweaty forehead.

"And you will have to look me in the eye sometime. Severus will not allow you to shut your eyes. He will probably even catch you without a wand."

So he did. He looked her in the eye, as he had never done before.

She sucked on the tip of her wand, eyeing him speculatively.

"Shall we try again?"

The tip of her wand flicked out of her mouth and toward him, shiny at the end with drool.

_Disgusting,_ was all he was able to think, and then she invaded his mind again.

This time, the probe, when it came, was more forceful than ever, and the images were just as clear as they had been when she'd dragged him into this room several weeks ago, taken away his wand, and tied him to the chair with hardly an explanation.

Draco knew what she would see just before she saw it.

pain.

_Pansy, kissing down his jawline. ._

_A punch to the nose from Hermione Granger, and Potter standing behind her was all that Draco could think about_

"_You must," said the Dark Lord, and he was nothing like Draco imagined but everything he feared_

_fear_

_unwillingness_

_thatshortlivedfantasythathe'dhadwherehestoodupandsaid_**I will not**_andhowhehad_longed_toliveitout_

_She would _kill _him when she saw that. Instantly._

No. Something like defiance rose up in him, and it was brief, just after she finished seeing Potter's eyes through Draco and before she got to the Dark Lord, but it was there.

She would not see that. Draco, amid the blinding pain, suddenly saw his mind as a giant box, in a split second's time, and all the little compartments he put everything in, happy memories, sad memories, angry memories, painful memories, all the emotions he'd ever felt, all at once splayed out before him and by extension, her, and she was rummaging through that box cheerfully- In that same half of a second, he realized he could close the box, lock it up, and she would never see another thing in it.

_Nothingness._

_Blissful nothingness._

_She could bang on the doors all she liked, but she could not get in. The box would remain locked, and as it did, Draco found confidence in that fact, and threw on a few more locks, boxed it all up again in a bigger box, and locked that one, too, for good measure. His fears, uncertainties, doubt- all things she would have tortured him for, because it was an unforgivable sin to Bellatrix not to trust in the Dark Lord. But they were all safe, all hidden from her prying eyes._

He later realized that the locks were unnecessary, that all it took was the closing of the box, but for now, he didn't know that the mere confidence in the impenetrability of his mind was what did it. She retracted the spell, and he felt no sting.

"Nothing," she echoed (but she echoed unknowingly), giddy. "Nothing at all! I'd almost thought you were dead, it had stopped so completely. But you're breathing. Good boy."

It almost felt like she was congratulating him for breathing.

She waved her wand and the ropes fell off his wrists.

"You're mad," he said, and his voice was hoarse despite the fact that it had only been an hour since he'd said anything. He rarely spoke much during their lessons- or perhaps this was the first time he'd spoken at all. Even when he didn't say anything, of course, she had known what he was thinking. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead. It stung on his chafed wrists.

She laughed, and simply said, "You are ready for the task that the Dark Lord has set you to. Go now, boy."

And this time, when the blackening fear and doubt and uncertainty swallowed everything else in his mind, at least it was safe from her.

* * *

AN:

Bellatrix is such a perv. You know she is. I think Draco's got to be terrified of her by the beginning of the sixth book. I'm terrified of her by the beginning of the sixth book. In the movies she's freaking scary. Funny, awesome, crazy, but nightmare-worthy.

Oh, and let's all wish Harry a happy birthday! :D His 29th, as he was born in 1980. (Yeah, I'm a nerd. I know.)


End file.
